LAKE RIDGE — As we interview the third-party independent candidates for Prince William County Board of Supervisors At-large Chairman, candidate Don Scoggins says he’s no newcomer.
And he’s right. This is Scoggins’ second campaign for the Board of County Supervisors. He ran a Primary race for Occoquan District Supervisor in 2014 and lost to current Occoquan Supervisor Ruth Anderson.
Scoggins has stayed active in the community, and he can regularly be spotted at Prince William Committee of 100 meetings, as well as public hearings and community forums at the county government center.
In 2014, he told Potomac Local that he had been a staunch Republican for 50 years and that “would never change.” Last August, it did, and Scoggins made headlines for his very public divorce from the GOP.
Today, he says the current Republican candidate for At-large Chairman John Gray is reverting to scare tactics to get people to vote for him.
Here’s a sample of Gray’s latest email asking for campaign donations:
“If an MS-13 gang member is booked in a Prince William jail, Ann Wheeler and the local Democrats will release them back onto our streets putting your family in danger.”
Gray has largely ignored Scoggins, who’s been in the At-large Chairman’s race since January, and has chosen to focus on his Democratic challenger Ann Wheeler.
Wheeler has not a position on illegal immigration — a federal issue — but she does say that, if elected, she plans to find out how much local money is being spent on the 287g program administered but the county sheriff’s office.
Under the program, if someone is arrested and is suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, they’re turned over to federal officials. “I don’t think we should be spending local tax dollars on something that is a federal responsibility,” said Wheeler.
On the immigration issue, Scoggins says illegal immigrants who are arrested locally should be turned over the federal authorities, but they should not be profiled or stopped by police simply because a local officer suspects them of being here illegally.
Scoggins, a Vietnam Veteran worked for the Washington, D.C. city government as an urban planner. He later worked at The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the General Services Administration before he retired in 2014.
